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Omnipotent Self

<h2>CHAPTER XII READJUSTMENT OF THOUGHT</h2> We have seen in an earlier chapter how one of the ways in which Narcissism manifests itself is in day-dreams. We saw how a child would substitute a phantasy or day-dream for a reality, and so fulfil its wishes and desires in this unreal manner. And we saw how, if this were persisted in to excess, the same or a modified method of fulfilling one’s wishes in realms of phantasy would remain even in adult life. I may here remark that even very little day-dreaming constitutes excess, and is bound to have a deleterious effect upon the efficiency and happiness of the individual’s life; unless, perhaps, that individual is mixing sufficient directive thought with his phantasies as in the case of a novelist or artist, for instance. In realising this, it must be borne in mind, that time and energy spent in phantasy thinking are time and energy lost to reality and fact; that the encouragement of the habit of phantasy thinking destroys the ability to think directively, or rather renders the full development of it impossible. Moreover, by encouraging day-dreams, we are simultaneously holding on to our Narcissism, and making it more likely that it will also find outlets in other deleterious ways. For instance, the “worrying nature” which is constantly thinking of possible troubles to come, and of how past troubles might have been avoided is indulging in a form of phantasy thinking. If the habit of phantasy thinking has been cultivated for pleasurable purposes, a channel has been opened which will be used without conscious intention for other kinds of phantasy as well. The habit of worrying to which we have just referred, is an example of this. Worry consists in weaving phantasies about something which cannot at the moment be influenced directively. It may be about something which has happened and therefore cannot be influenced at all by thinking about it, or about something which may happen but over which the thinker has no immediate control; and it consists in going over all the “mays” and “mights” connected with the case, and experiencing the unpleasant emotions belonging to each phantasied situation. In order to get rid of this worrying habit, to close the channel which permits of it, a person must simultaneously cut out pleasurable day-dreams also, and thus close the channel entirely. Therefore, let us recommend the individual who indulges largely in day-dreams, to get rid of the habit as soon as possible. Those who have other abnormal characteristics which they wish to eradicate, should understand that they must, simultaneously, get rid of their day-dreams. And this means pulling oneself up, not merely when one discovers oneself imagining some glorious vista in which one occupies a principle but impossible part, it means similarly pulling oneself up in a thousand little ways; it means catching oneself whenever one wanders from a type of directive thought to a type of phantastic thought. For instance, in the examination of one’s aims, one is thinking directively, and one comes to the conclusion that, say, a course of shorthand and typewriting shall be taken at once, that the aim of being a secretary is one suitable and compatible with one’s attainments. At this point, it is very easy for the individual to suddenly find that he or she has become, in day-dreams, the secretary of a duke or American millionaire. And if he does not pull himself up at this stage, he will find that the duke’s money has been left him, or she will find that she has married the American millionaire. And so the phantasy goes on. It starts in reality, but the Narcissistic temperament takes it right away from this. It must be nipped in the bud at the very beginning, if the habit of directive thought is to be established. As soon as the individual finds himself drifting in this way, wasting energy, fulfilling wishes by mere dreams, he must pull himself up short, and say to himself, “Here the real ends, there the phantasy begins. This is the point I must come back to, I must deal with this matter from the real point of view only, without allowing this phantasy to intrude itself.” And here again, much patience will be needed, for if the habit has already been cultivated, he will soon be back in phantasy again, probably in less than five minutes. But phantasy thought does not only mean day-dreams in the sense in which we have spoken of them here. It may take all sort of disguises, and what would be phantasy thought in one person, would be directive thought in another. In one case, the environment and education and inherent ability would not be of that order which could make the thoughts come to be facts; in the other case the abilities of the person might be sufficient to do so. Thus, were an ordinary person to sit in his arm-chair, and phantasy a wonderful plan for the conquest of Europe, without having either the will or the means of carrying out his ambition, that would constitute phantasy thinking pure and simple. If, however, a Napoleon did the same, with the will and the possible means, with the near aim at hand in the conquest of a small country, and the subsequent conquest of Europe as an ultimate one, his method of thought would have to be described as directive thinking. So that similar thinking in two different individuals may really be classified as two different principles of thinking. I have no doubt that many readers will be saying to themselves now, “But my greatest pleasure is to be found in day-dreams. I find in directive thinking nothing but hard work.” In such a case, if the individual cannot enjoy his directive thinking, and he gets no emotional discharge by means of it, it is possible that his aims in life are unsuited to him, or that he has not sufficient aims in life, that his time is not as fully occupied with interesting acts as it should be. In such a case, subsidiary aims should be formed deliberately, wherein he could take an interest in directive thinking. For it may be accepted as a fact that, with proper cultivation and education, more real pleasure can be found in suitable directive thinking than in any amount of day-dreams. It is also a further fact that the individual’s energy is not then wasted, but is more or less efficiently utilised. Moreover, instead of losing strength of character, he is now gaining it. Let it be borne in mind, always, that continual indulgence of phantasy thought, from its very ease, breeds the habit of inertia, for the individual’s aims and wishes attain fulfilment without any need for activity on his part; and here a vicious circle is produced, because the inertia, which he has thus encouraged, now in its turn tends to make him resort to phantasy the more. It is easy, of course, to say, “I will cut myself off from phantasy thought, I will pull myself up whenever this occurs, and leave it alone.” But it is by no means easy to act up to this resolution. If, however, another kind of directive thought is deliberately substituted for the phantasy, the task is made very much easier. If the water in the bath is too hot, and we want it to cool rapidly, we do not merely turn off the hot tap, we simultaneously turn on the cold. The task will be rendered more easy still, if the individual selects his subject of directive thought to replace phantasy beforehand, not waiting until the time comes. For instance, we will suppose that, as one subsidiary aim with which to fill in his time, a person has selected the collection of postage stamps. He will each day have in front of him some page which he wishes to arrange in chronological order, to consider from the point of view of water-marks and perforations; and he may make up his mind that as soon as he finds himself dealing in phantasy thought he will not only cut out the phantasy thought but will at once start arranging, in his mind, the stamps which he was shortly going to arrange in his book. It matters not in the least what form the substitute thought takes, so long as it possesses two qualities, (1) it is directive, i.e., it is going to lead to some sort of actual change or action, and (2) that it bears a pleasurable interest. And for that reason, I have selected a very trivial form of directive thought as an example. The point is that the individual should select some subject in which he has a personal and active interest, as a subject with which he may replace phantasy thought, whenever the latter comes into his mind. Phantasy thought may, further, not be of necessity thoughts impossible of fulfilment, except in the immediate present. Thoughts of erotic or other desires which intrude themselves at untimely moments, are phantasy thoughts, and some people frequently complain that they are annoyed by them, especially when they have no intention of actually fulfilling them in fact, or when the means of fulfilling them are not present. Here again, to have a subject ready at hand, or to have a substitute thought for the undesired thoughts is a very real assistance. Even a sentence thought out beforehand or a good maxim which can be repeated several times and considered, forms an excellent substitute thought with which to replace the unwanted phantasy. Let us now consider a few other examples. The majority of educated people, of a so-called normal type, when they have completed their day’s work, and are fatigued, require some sort of mental rest, and as a rule some kind of phantasy thought is resorted to in the evening. Also, when this fatigue is cumulative, they say, “We have worked eleven months, and now require one month’s holiday.” This is really an unconscious phantasy requiring a regressive reward. They are not really tired out, physically or mentally, but they have accumulated, after a series of postponements, a large number of Narcissistic efforts at phantasy; and the holiday which they now require is really to satisfy this. It is a return to childhood and the time of irresponsibility, and their occupations on the holiday may very likely be, to a large extent, similar to those with which they occupied themselves in childhood. They throw off their adult status and responsibility, and deliberately take this regressive reward. Even with normal people the idea of rest in the form of a holiday, often means nothing but phantasy thought, time disregarded, no effort of any sort to be made. But in the less Narcissistic type of person who still retains directive thought even on a holiday—a holiday means merely change in immediate aim, change in occupation, rather than rest from aim and occupation. Phantasy thinking may take many quite surreptitious forms. In old age, for instance, we know that type of person, who is quietly slipping into helpless imbecility. He is the same man, who, at an earlier age, lacked the habit of directive thought. On the other hand, there is our intellectual old man or woman, still full of the day’s problems or politics, who indulged, in early life, but little in phantasies. Experience shows us that the influence of directive or undirective thought in youth may not only determine our happiness in declining years, but may even determine the actual age to which we live. For, paradoxically, it is the Narcissist, who of all people desires a long life, and who is, of all people, the least likely to attain old age. He frequently “worries himself into the grave.” We have not yet exhausted the forms of phantasy thought. A casual conversation between acquaintances in which no information of value is imparted, in which merely some emotional material is brought to the surface and thrown out, is undirective thought. The first person, interested in some emotional experience, recounts to the second the facts of that experience, often without arousing any emotional feeling in the second person. Such is the type of conversation which takes place over a vast majority of tea-tables. It is wasted energy. Another example is that of conventional letter-writing, in certain cases. The duty letter which one person writes to another person is of the same type. The writer who deals with his or her experiences on a shopping expedition, who states a series of things which have happened, merely in order to enjoy them once again in phantasy, is performing the same waste of energy. There is no return for this expended energy, the rush of ideas produces no result. Perhaps the time is due for a letter to be written, and it is the turn of this person to write a letter. As a result of this conventional attitude, the writer has to resort to phantasy thought to satisfy the needs of the moment. We have pointed out that reading a novel is a form of phantasy thinking, in which we identify ourselves with the hero. The same occurs in our cinemas. Here, the pleasure of phantasy thinking is enhanced by the fact that the visual impression is produced direct, whereas in reading a novel the visual impression is by words only, and a certain amount of effort is needed to translate it in the mind into its pictorial form; and thus the cinematograph induces a form of phantasy thinking which needs the least effort of all to realise. It is within the reach of anyone possessing a few pence, and although the average person may regard it as educative and useful to the community, the magistrate who is dealing with the youthful delinquent knows the cinematograph to be very harmful to the child’s mind. And there is no doubt that the unconscious effect of such mental stimuli is excessively deleterious to the race in general. The indulgence in it encourages the habit of phantasy thinking at a small cost, and such a habit soon becomes established as part of the individual’s make-up. Nor does the evil stay itself here. For the phantasy in the cinematograph consists usually in the fulfilment of impossible wishes, and in this, as in other cases, the emotional output is increased out of all proportion to the real exciting causes. This results in a misplacement in the emotional output in the unconscious mind, which in its turn is the basis of many neurotic conditions which may even require a physician’s aid to eradicate. And one must remember that a neurotic condition need not merely be the illness of an individual, it may be, and often is, the disease of a nation. Hence, like the fairy-tale, the cinema, as it is at present, should not be used as a child’s pastime. <h3>§2</h3> In other forms of Narcissism also, we shall find it easier to break away from phantasy if we substitute a reality; that is, if we turn our flow of energy into a real, instead of an imaginary channel, instead of merely trying to dam the flow in the original channel. In cases where this Narcissism involves a bad habit, such as irritability, impatience, weeping, etc., the line that should be followed differs rather from that suggested in the case of day-dreams. In the first place, not only should we pull ourselves up short, but we should also bear in mind, immediately, the first part of the technique which we suggested in a previous chapter. That is to say, we should call to mind what our abnormal act really means, and having done this, having realised it in consciousness, we should then endeavour to use the same energy which we should have used for this abnormal act in an immediate and useful manner. Now, in all these cases, our abnormal reaction takes place because our omnipotence or sense of perfection is disturbed; and since this sense of perfection is not real, the easiest and most convenient channel for us to turn our energy into is one which still satisfies the sense of perfection, that is to say, one in which we may feel that we are, by our act, becoming more perfect in reality, instead of clinging to our perfection in phantasy. It is impossible to give examples to cover the very many reactions which may take place, but one actual example, given in detail, should be sufficient to enable the individual to invent others to suit his own case. Let us again take the case of the impatient man, in which the Time-factor has never been fully realised. Let us say that he has entered a restaurant for lunch, and that having glanced down the menu, he then has to wait ten minutes before the waiter attends to him. Probably, after the first minute of that time, he has begun to get impatient; at the end of ten minutes he is either making up his mind to go without his lunch, so great is his irritability, or else he is, with great emotion, explaining to his neighbour how extremely inefficient this restaurant is, as regards management, service, and, in fact, everything connected with it. He is utterly unable to realise the facts of the case. Let us again refer to the facts for a moment. The restaurant is a business, and must make a profit; in order to do this, only a limited number of waiters can possibly be kept, and the number of these has to be regulated by the average number of customers, by the profit which it is possible to make in the neighbourhood, and other factors. In the second place, the luncheon hour is one at which the number of customers is well above the average, and therefore in which the service is bound to be the slowest; however good the management, however skilful the waiters, they are obliged to devote a certain number of minutes to each customer; and the probability is that our Narcissistic individual is being as well attended to as anybody else. He does not realise this however, he is not dealing with the facts at all. He merely knows that he wishes for an immediate meal, that his sense of perfection is thoroughly disturbed, and his unconscious idea is that if he is sufficiently impatient, what he wants will come to him immediately, just as it did in childhood. Now let us see how he may deal with himself. We will suppose that he has read this chapter before his next visit to the restaurant in question. Once again he sits down, once again he finds he is kept waiting. His impatience begins to manifest itself in its early stages. He pulls himself up, and the first thing that he does is to realise the causes of his impatience, as set out in the last paragraph. He must go quickly over the original causes of his Narcissism in infancy, and of how he obtained means of satisfaction, and so developed his present habit of thought. He must run over the facts concerning the restaurant, and realise that it is a business place, and that it is at its busiest hour. In other words, he must get into full consciousness the various factors associated with this Narcissistic outburst of impatience. Then, let him realise as a kind of summary, “What I am actually objecting to is the disturbance of my unconscious feeling of omnipotence and perfection. Let me, however, turn this energy, utilise this time during which I am waiting in attaining a step nearer real perfection instead of bemoaning the loss of my imaginary perfection. Now, a step towards real perfection will be attained, if I overcome this habit of impatience. Let me, therefore, utilise this time in sitting here patiently, in worrying no longer about the time the waiter is taking, in being actually pleased with the fact that I am becoming more patient, and that my time is being usefully filled with a directive aim, which has as its object the same ultimate idea as the original phantastic one, namely, that of perfection.” Critics may here suggest that this long monologue on the part of the impatient individual might have been cut short by allowing him to say, “Obviously, the waiters are busy, it is no use being impatient, let me be patient.” I must point out, however, that the result would probably not have been the same. The longer method has its value in the fact that he brings into consciousness the two ideas of perfection, the Narcissistic idea which is being hurt, and the real idea which he is desiring consciously to obtain. And it is very much easier to turn energy from one channel to another, if there are lines of similarity between the two channels. Hence, when one’s sense of perfection is assailed, let one turn one’s energy into some form of thought which still satisfies the idea of perfection attained or attainable. A similar process can be gone through with any other Narcissistic form of trouble, and consists in recapitulating the causes, and in reaching a determined effort to deflect consciously the energy from the phantastic into the real. The same principle holds good for all temperamental troubles of this sort, but the individual will have to devise for himself a suitable formula to use to suit the needs of his own case. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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